Chương 60: The Market Challenge and the Trouble with Going Viral

Early the next morning, all the contestants were called to the main kitchen. Gareth Vane stood before them, a faintly mysterious smile on his face.

"Congratulations on surviving this far. You're the ten strongest people of the season." He handed out a sweet first.

"But the good days are over. In the studio, you've had the best equipment, the most stable environment, the most ample prep. But that doesn't fully reflect a cook's true level." He paused, then raised his voice.

"A true cook belongs on the battlefield! In that chaotic, noisy place full of unknown variables! So for the next round, we're leaving here—for a place that will test what you're really made of!" A staffer wheeled out a whiteboard, a huge map hanging on it, a red circle marking a spot in downtown Los Angeles.

"Grand Central Market!" Vane announced.

"You're about to face the season's first outdoor market challenge!" A stir ran through the contestants. Grand Central Market was the oldest and most renowned food market in Los Angeles, a place where ingredient vendors, food stalls, and restaurants from all over the world gathered—loud with voices, thick with life.

"The rules are simple," Vane went on.

"The ten of you will choose your own ingredients in the market's real environment and create your own dish. The theme is—use one dish to prove who you are." Use one dish to prove who you are. The theme was more open than the earlier "home," and it tested a cook's self-knowledge and cooking philosophy more deeply.

"You'll have seventy-five minutes of cooking time. This round, no one is eliminated." Hearing that, everyone let out a breath.

"But"—Vane's "but" was never absent—"your dishes will be ranked by the three of us. The first-place finisher will gain a huge, possibly life-or-death advantage in the next elimination round. And the last-place finisher... heh. I can only wish you luck." The tense mood settled over everyone again. After they were dismissed, Chris returned to the apartment, and his phone rang. It was his friend Dave.

"Hey, Chris! My superstar! Have you seen the news online?" Dave's voice sounded unusually excited.

"What news?" Chris was a little baffled.

"You're famous, man! Totally famous!" Dave said, thrilled.

"Ever since your restaurant-takeover episode aired, your heat online hasn't dropped!

'Potato Guy's epic comeback,' 'the liquid-nitrogen salmon,' 'the kitchen traffic cop'—those topics blew up on Twitter and YouTube! You've gone from the unlucky guy the whole internet was laughing at to an inspirational icon!" This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Chris opened his phone and, sure enough, saw a flood of discussion about himself. The follower count on his social media accounts had exploded from a few hundred to over a hundred thousand in a matter of days.

"And that's not all!" Dave continued.

"You know what? A brand's already reached out to me! A pretty well-known cookware brand wants you to do an endorsement for a frying pan. And the number they're offering isn't small!" An endorsement? Chris paused. As a programmer who hadn't earned much before he transmigrated, and a broke nobody with barely two hundred dollars to his name in this life, money was undeniably tempting. But he barely hesitated before he made his decision.

"Dave, turn it down for me."

"What? Why?" Dave didn't understand.

"This is a great opportunity!"

"I'm a contestant right now. I don't want anything pulling my focus," Chris said simply.

"And I don't want to be cashed in this fast. My value should show in the kitchen, not in an ad." He knew very well that all the fame he had now came from the show. The moment he was eliminated, this false prosperity would scatter like smoke. Only by winning the title could he truly turn this traffic into something of his own. After he hung up, Chris felt a little strange. The recognition from the outside world eased, just slightly, the loneliness that had always held him taut.

But what came with it was the discomfort of being placed under a magnifying glass. He didn't like the feeling. He shook his head, threw the stray thoughts aside, and refocused on the system shop. The next round was a market challenge, and what it tested most was a cook's knowledge of ingredients and ability to adapt on the spot. And that was precisely his weak point. His Ingredient Sense attribute was still stuck at C+.

[Advanced Ingredient Theory Manual (C+ → B crash course)] [Effect: Systematically instills theoretical knowledge of the world's mainstream ingredients—including but not limited to the denaturation temperatures of various proteins, the smoke points and flavor profiles of different fats, the pairing logic and taboos of common spices, the optimal handling of fruits and vegetables, and more. Can rapidly raise your "Ingredient Sense" attribute from C+ (65) to B- (68).] [Price: 80 Arena Points.] [Advanced High-Pressure Adaptation Training] [Effect: Simulates various high-pressure cooking environments in the virtual space (outdoors, banquet back-of-house, sudden emergencies, etc.); through repeated training, raises your concentration and adaptability in non-standard environments. Can raise your "Stress Tolerance" attribute from C- (62) to C (65).] [Price: 60 Arena Points.] Two options. After a brief hesitation, Chris chose the former.

Stress tolerance could be ground out slowly through real combat, but ingredient knowledge was a hard requirement for the next match. In a place as dense with ingredient varieties as Grand Central Market, if he couldn't make the optimal choice in a short time, he'd immediately fall behind.

"Redeem the Advanced Ingredient Theory Manual." [Arena Points -80. Remaining Arena Points: 327.] [Instilling manual contents...] A vast stream of information surged into Chris's brain in an instant. Countless facts about ingredients, like files being unzipped, sorted themselves into categories and stored away in neat order in his mind. He felt as if his brain were a server with an upgraded database.

Now his understanding of ingredients was no longer the vague, experience-based grasp of the past, but a systematic body of knowledge built on scientific principle. One look at a cut of pork and he could think of the fat content and muscle-fiber structure of its different sections, and from that judge the best way to cook it. One smell of a spice and he could analyze its main flavor compounds and call to mind the other ingredients that would create a "flavor synergy" with it.

[Attribute updated: Ingredient Sense C+ (65) → B- (68).] [Culinary Rating minor adjustment: B (77/100) → B (78/100).] The preparation was done. For tomorrow's market challenge, Chris was full of anticipation.